In prior art burners, the gas is distributed to the combustion zone through specially designed orifices or parts which are formed within a unitary block or plate of ceramic material. However, it is important to note not only that this does single block/plate of material serves to transport and distribute the gas to the burning zone, but also that the top layer of that same material serves as the combustion zone, which on being heated to incandescence also serves to produce the infrared radiation or radiant heat flux. Thus, it is clear that the unitary material of prior art burner blocks serves at least four functions: namely transportation, distribution, combustion and radiation.
In other prior art burners involving multi-layed porous ceramic material, the coarse, granular nature of the material that may be used does not give the required precision in pore size/uniformity, or the wrong materials are specified for maximum heat transfer and reticular integrity at very high temperatures (and low temperature water shock), or the combustion takes place in a layer where maximum use cannot be made of the three modes of heat transfer, namely conduction, convection and radiation during the combustion and thus be unable to enhance the final radiation.